


heaven is a place we know

by torchsong (brella)



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Coda, Confessions, Drabble, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-06-24 05:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15624027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/torchsong
Summary: After Grima has fallen, Tiki wakes in someone's arms.





	heaven is a place we know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merewiowing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merewiowing/gifts).



> I wrote this for Colette quite some time ago and only just found it again. I still like it, so I decided to polish it up a bit and bring it to AO3 even though it's just a short thing. Now that I have a pseud for those short things, though, I've gone MAD WITH POWER.

It was not to the sound of Grima’s dying scream that Tiki woke. 

A body was pressed to hers—or, rather, crushing her against it—human in its frailty, in the lively racing tempo of its heartbeat. She was certain, for a moment, as she had been so many times, that she was dreaming, an empty and peculiar dream that smelled of smoke and death and the bittersweet sting of victory; the sky above her fluttering, itching eyes was filled with dust, though the sun was beginning to peek through it. And someone was crying. 

“Pray open your eyes, my lady,” a voice was choking into her ear. It sounded far away, which made her sad. “I beg you,  _please_ , please—Grima is fallen forever! That which we would not dare even dream, it… it has come to pass. So please…  _please_ wake; you must see it.”

Ah, Tiki thought—she would recognize that tone, sharp and true as the edge of a silver sword, anywhere. And though the name broke somewhere at the back of her sore, dry tongue, she hoped that it still found a place somewhere in the breeze above or the earth below. She hoped that it would stay there for all of time.

“Please…” Say’ri whispered, muffled by tears. “We have come too far for you to fall here. We must look on this moment together and—and remember it forever. A thousand years or more I would stay by your side, I swore it then and I swear it now—but you must give me those years. This world needs you.  _I_  need you.”

At that, Tiki’s eyes let themselves be opened, and it was on the crumpled-looking face of the princess of Chon’sin that they fell, and it was there that they stayed. A long, red cut bled along her fair cheek, its hues mingling with her tears. It would leave a scar. Her children would admire it so, and Tiki would trace the line forever, in her heart. 

“You do?” Tiki mumbled sleepily, and were she not so exhausted, she would smile. 

She felt Say’ri’s whole body loosen with relief, though her arms still cradled her at the shoulders. 

“Gods,” Say’ri exclaimed under her breath, or what was left of it. She lifted a trembling hand to Tiki's temple and tenderly brushed some hair aside, and Tiki let the touch envelop her, faint though it was. “M-My lady Tiki, I thought—I was certain—”

“No, keep going, I implore you,” said Tiki. “I must hear more of… of how much you need me.” 

A moment’s pause grew before a noise escaped Say’ri, halfway between an incredulous scoff and a delighted laugh.

“Fie!” Say’ri cried. “You heard it all, and you said nothing? The gods have certainly blessed me with…” 

The rest of the sentence was lost, for Say’ri, battle-weary and afraid, could no longer follow it. Tiki laid in her arms and nothing was further from her mind than sleep, for the first time in centuries. How could she consider something that would rob her of the sound of Say’ri breathing and being alive in that frighteningly human way, thrilling and beautiful but impermanent? 

“I need you as well as I need my beating heart to live,” Say’ri said at last, “and as I need my tongue to speak. It is a need far beyond my ken, and I…”

Tiki, despite her drowsiness, felt a smile creeping across her face, from somewhere deep inside. “Ah, Say’ri, that is not so. You were only frightened because I dozed off; it is not—”  

“’Tis not the fear speaking, my lady,” Say’ri insisted in a clear voice, though her face was streaked with tears and ash. “I swear it. I would not let it speak such words on my behalf. They are mine and mine alone.” 

“Say’ri,” Tiki repeated, softly, and it echoed deep within her, and made a home. 

She lifted one weak hand to the wound still scarlet, and ran her thumb along it, and held it there. Say’ri gripped it in her own, wrenching her eyes shut, and did not let go. 

“If you truly think I would only say such things because I was afraid, then,” Say’ri said, without opening her eyes, “then let me say this out of fear as well, and pray you not judge me for it.” 

“Never,” Tiki promised her, and waited.


End file.
